'This collection offers a rich and multifaceted history of Islam and the Turk as seen through European eyes. Rendering the centrality of the Turk to European self-fashioning over three centuries the essays gathered here make an important contribution to an already very lively field of scholarship in an engaging, provocative and highly readable way.' Nebahat Avcioglu, Columbia University's Global Center in Paris, France
'This well-knit collection on the representation of the Turk is unique in that it includes eleven studies of Venetian, Tuscan, German, Flemish, Danish and New Spanish paintings and literature, and concludes with an Ottoman view of the Europeans. By focusing on 1450-1750, the period before the beginning of Orientalism, James G. Harper, the editor, shows how Euro-Christian representations of the Turk, which stemmed from political and military confrontations, assumed visual importance in churches, monasteries, and other ecclesiastical environments. This religious art of war defined the imaginaire of early modern societies, and continues to cast its shadow on our world today.' Nabil Matar, University of Minnesota, USA
'An excellent volume in Ashgate'sTransculturalisms, 1400-1700 series, this collection looks at the image of the Ottoman world and Islam in the early-modern period... An important volume.' European Review of History
'... much useful material.' English Historical Review
'The highly nuanced essays in this excellent volume provide a clear sense of the divergent visual attitudes towards Europe's most significant other in this period ... The Turk and Islam in the Western Eye is a welcome addition to recent scholarship on the Renaissance, the Mediterranean, and east-west cultural interaction.' European History Quarterly